I was the first member of my family to go willingly to Germany (my Great-Grandfather was a POW here). I had twice taken short trips to Berlin, but in total I had spent less than a week in the country before moving here. It was to me a relatively mysterious place, of which my knowledge largely stemmed from a half-remembered history class, that Fawlty Towers episode and late '70s Bowie. Upon learning that I had been assigned to live in [REDACTED], I looked it up. It’s a very small town about two hours from Frankfurt. None of the town is visible on Google Street View, except for a series of panoramas uploaded by a single, presumably terminally-single man named Henning. In preparing mentally for my move, I was adamant to see the Real Germany, and for better or worse declared that I would savour life in my adopted home whichever way it came. On first impression, however, this town reminded me of Northleach. You don’t need to have visited Northleach (I haven’t) to know that it blows.
Having arranged to rent an apartment from a colleague at the school from September onwards, for the first two weeks I stayed with a local family in an Airbnb. While imposing at first, living in close quarters with a German family seemed the best way to quickly acclimatise to local customs and manners, and deny myself the refuge of staying in my room during the jittery first days. It took no longer than a couple of days to realise that I had indeed picked an extremely German family to stay with. Nobody can tell a story without doing all of the sound effects, and during a typical dinnertime anecdote I’ll be startled by a barking dog, a pneumatic drill, an ambulance and a maternity ward. The dad enjoys socks with his sandals, milk with his dinner and eats as quickly as he can before excusing himself to play and live-stream Diablo III in his office, while the mum vapes outside and tells you about her friends and some of the problems they have with their knees. They have 11 different kinds of coleslaw in the fridge. I lied to the family and said I liked coleslaw but by the ninth one, it stopped being a lie!
Needless to say, my host family were also extremely kind, and my first days here were made enjoyable by their lively hospitality. The town, too, proved to be lovely. Like a nicer, better version of Northleach. It’s a fairytale place ripped straight from a classic Grimm tale, complete with a picturesque Schloß at the centre, an Old Town full of old curiosities, and an old lady in a candy house who puts children in the oven.
After a week of acclimatisation, I began my new job working as an assistant teacher at the local school. My decision to work in a local school was based more on the promise of a steady salary than any devotion to teaching itself. I had hoped that I might walk into a class and my innate, hitherto unknown gift for teaching would instantly mesmerise all in the room. But I knew deep down that nothing is as easy as it seems, except for karate. In the weeks preceding my starting at the school, questions over my ability to teach a class of German teenagers escalated in their severity; What if they’re a bit rowdy? What if they all start fighting one another? What if one kills another? What if I kill one by accident? Or on purpose?! Would my new colleagues help or hinder my escape? How do you say in German, The child was like that when I arrived?
Above all, my anxieties about teaching had focussed on explaining the intricacies of English grammar. If learning German had taught me anything, it was: a) a ton of German words, and b) that I had completely taken for granted my own native grasp of English, with its countless tenses and infinite malleability.
Yet my worrying was in vain, and within a handful of days I had begun to relax and enjoy school life. See, some things about school never change; teenagers still smell, it’s still funny to push people into oncoming corridor traffic, and goths are still scary. Inside the classroom, my apprehensions about explaining the complexities of English were quickly vanquished. They have without exception been welcoming, enthusiastic and entertaining to work with. Moreover, it is startling, and as a British language learner frankly embarrassing, how good these kids are at English. Within a class of 30 I’m like, the fifth best at speaking and fifteenth at spellling. But as Sharon Osborne once said (quoting JK Rowling), "As a teacher, you end up learning far more than you teach", and it's completely true. I look forward to vastly improving my English over the course of the year as well.
Having arranged to rent an apartment from a colleague at the school from September onwards, for the first two weeks I stayed with a local family in an Airbnb. While imposing at first, living in close quarters with a German family seemed the best way to quickly acclimatise to local customs and manners, and deny myself the refuge of staying in my room during the jittery first days. It took no longer than a couple of days to realise that I had indeed picked an extremely German family to stay with. Nobody can tell a story without doing all of the sound effects, and during a typical dinnertime anecdote I’ll be startled by a barking dog, a pneumatic drill, an ambulance and a maternity ward. The dad enjoys socks with his sandals, milk with his dinner and eats as quickly as he can before excusing himself to play and live-stream Diablo III in his office, while the mum vapes outside and tells you about her friends and some of the problems they have with their knees. They have 11 different kinds of coleslaw in the fridge. I lied to the family and said I liked coleslaw but by the ninth one, it stopped being a lie!
Needless to say, my host family were also extremely kind, and my first days here were made enjoyable by their lively hospitality. The town, too, proved to be lovely. Like a nicer, better version of Northleach. It’s a fairytale place ripped straight from a classic Grimm tale, complete with a picturesque Schloß at the centre, an Old Town full of old curiosities, and an old lady in a candy house who puts children in the oven.
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| The town, as glimpsed from the old lady's kitchen window |
After a week of acclimatisation, I began my new job working as an assistant teacher at the local school. My decision to work in a local school was based more on the promise of a steady salary than any devotion to teaching itself. I had hoped that I might walk into a class and my innate, hitherto unknown gift for teaching would instantly mesmerise all in the room. But I knew deep down that nothing is as easy as it seems, except for karate. In the weeks preceding my starting at the school, questions over my ability to teach a class of German teenagers escalated in their severity; What if they’re a bit rowdy? What if they all start fighting one another? What if one kills another? What if I kill one by accident? Or on purpose?! Would my new colleagues help or hinder my escape? How do you say in German, The child was like that when I arrived?
Above all, my anxieties about teaching had focussed on explaining the intricacies of English grammar. If learning German had taught me anything, it was: a) a ton of German words, and b) that I had completely taken for granted my own native grasp of English, with its countless tenses and infinite malleability.
Yet my worrying was in vain, and within a handful of days I had begun to relax and enjoy school life. See, some things about school never change; teenagers still smell, it’s still funny to push people into oncoming corridor traffic, and goths are still scary. Inside the classroom, my apprehensions about explaining the complexities of English were quickly vanquished. They have without exception been welcoming, enthusiastic and entertaining to work with. Moreover, it is startling, and as a British language learner frankly embarrassing, how good these kids are at English. Within a class of 30 I’m like, the fifth best at speaking and fifteenth at spellling. But as Sharon Osborne once said (quoting JK Rowling), "As a teacher, you end up learning far more than you teach", and it's completely true. I look forward to vastly improving my English over the course of the year as well.